‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,’ says Susan, her charming brows drawing together; ‘it is very stupid of you, and you know you don’t mean a word of it. Stealing! How could you steal your own cherries? What nonsense it all is! If you have nothing better to say than that, you’—with a sudden and most unusual discourtesy—‘had better go away.’
‘Never; wild horses wouldn’t draw me from this,’ says Crosby. ‘I’ll say something “better” at once. I’m sure you have the highest opinion of me. Will that do, and may I stay now?’
Susan gives him a glance from under her long lashes that is still a little resentful—a very little—but she says nothing.
‘Must I go, then?’ says Crosby. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Susan, to send a poor lonely creature adrift like this.’
‘You are not so very lonely,’ says she. She gives him another lovely, half-angry glance.
‘I am indeed. There is not a soul to speak to me when I go back to my silent home, and hours must elapse before I can with any decency go to bed. Susan, be merciful. Let me stay here and talk to you of—’ He stops.
‘Of what?’ says Susan, still eminently distrustful. ‘What are you going to talk about? That last thing—’
‘I’ll never mention cherries again.’
‘You must keep to that. And now’—lifting her face and smiling at him in a little fugitive way—‘go on about your sister. You haven’t told me anything about her except her name. Katherine, is it not?’
‘Katherine Forster.’